Hi I'm new to live audio and usually only am a worship leader but have been trying to improve our set up and I have a question about auxs and monitors

So we have our mixer(not powered) hooked up to our power amp and our main monitors hooked up to the back of that through a speakon connection I was wondering how to hook up auxs for personal monitors when I don't have any more connections on the power amp

I havnt really tried yet but would I just hook up the monitors through the snake thats plugged into the mixer or does it have to go directly through the power amp

It depends upon whether your foldback monitors are powered or not. The aux output from the mixer desk will usually be at a line level. If your monitors are powered (contain an amplifier) then the aux signal from the mixer could be fed back down the snake to the line input of your powered monitors (this is the same configuration that we have).

If your monitors are not powered - you will need a separate amplifier. If you mouint the amplifier near the monitors, you can still route the line level signal down the snake to the amplier and then to the monitors. If you want to locate the amplifier near the mixer desk - you will need to connect the mixer desk aux out to the amplifier and then (via speaker cable) to the monitor. The speaker cable must be kept as short as practicable and should be routed separately to the snake (which carries low level signals).

If you can supply the exact type of equipment you have - we will be able to provide some more concrete recommendations.

Thanks for all the info I did some more research on it and I think I will need to get some powered monitors I found some made by kustom that run around 100 bucks would they be worth while or are they junk also once I get them how would I hook them up the snake I have only has 4 outputs I use two for the main monitors would I plug the 2 snake cables into my main outputs on my power amp and then the two remaining cables into my mixer aux outputs ...if I do this does it mean I can only use two monitors

Also a separate ? Does anyone have a simple answer for how to make my vocals sound better the vocals seem to get overrun by the music would better mics make a difference or would a Mic preamp help... the vocals never sound loud enough or clear

Yes, If your snake has four outputs two (2) would go to the mains (left and right) and the remaining two (2) would go from your mixer aux outputs to the new powered monitors. For foldback use - the mixer aux outputs would need to be set up for pre-fade operation (i.e. the fader would only affect the main outputs and not the aux outputs).

I can't comment on the kustom kit (I am in the UK and that make is not familiar) but 100 bucks sounds way, way too cheap to me. They will be that price for a reason so beware! Try before you buy if you can.

Yes, you will only be able to use two foldback monitors as standard. You could, however play a few other tricks if you needed more foldbacks. If your vocalists need (say) two monitors you could connect them both to the same snake output. This would mean, however, that they would both have the same foldback sound. Another option is to sacrifice a microphone input channel and use that 'in reverse' as another folback output. How many aux outputs has your mixer desk got?

To make the vocals sound better - what mics do you currently use? How is the EQ setup? if the vocals are 'getting lost' you need to create a 'gap' for them in the frequency spectrum by EQing the vocals and the musicians properly. Is this something you do or is the desk setup and left?

Good mics and compression help vocals. Having the rest of the band not not stomp all over their spectrum is important. Most important is talent, of course. What vocal mics do you use now? And while we're at it, how much of the band is miked and what console do you have?

Stage volume may be part of your issue. If you can wrangle that under control (which your drummers and guitarists may or may not like), things always get better.

Dave's hunch is right, Kustom is Krap. For powered monitors, my first choice would be QSC K8 or K10. For conventional monitors, I've always loved Renkus TRC81 and TRC82. In-ear monitors, both wired and wireless, are increasingly common these days, and they say that custom ear molds are the best thing a musician can get.

How many monitors are you looking to hook up?
What type of music do you play?

If you only need one or two monitors, powered speakers might be good. If you're looking to get 3-4+, I think getting a powerful amp and passive speakers would be more worth your money.

I have personally purchased and used the unpowered versions of the Kustom speakers you're looking at (mine are the KPC10M) and compared to most other speakers, they do sound pretty bad. However, since budget was a severly limiting factor (i.e. get the Kustoms or not have monitors) we decided to purchase 3 of them. It is now our 3rd year of using them and I can say from experience that they are very durable! They get moved and transported every week with lots of abuse and get pushed very hard (full band with drums) and we haven't had any issue with them at all. If you have an EQ for the monitor mix, you can work out some of the muddiness. Just know that the highs will be a little harsh if pushed loud and there's absolutely no low end (not really necessary for monitors anyway). The only thing that worries me about the powered version (which I have not used myself) is that the amp is only 50 watts. Also, it is not bi-amped so it's not probably not using that 50 watts very efficiently either. If you don't have a loud band, they might do the trick under a very tight budget but if you have some wiggle room, I'd go with something better.

If your band isn't super loud, the Yamaha MSR100 8" powered speaker might work for you..they run 299.99. I haven't used them personally but Yamaha is definitely a huge step up from Kustom. Behringer is also a popular brand that's kind of between Kustom and Yamaha..more on the cheaper side.

Hi there
We use the AUX outputs on the mixer for foldbacks so that you can control which channels go into the foldback mix - you may be able to run an output from the desk or via your multi-core (note that our AUX output is balanced, so we use a line converter before connecting to the powered monitors on the stage.
Once you get a signal to the stage, you can run this to almost as many foldbacks as you want (as long as you don't need a different mix for every FB). We use powered monitors with both a SLAVE out and an additional 8OHM feed - this means we can link it to a passive speaker AND link to another powered FB too - you can daisy-chain them all over the stage if you want....
As it happens we have the choice of four separate AUX outputs and have two FB's each with their own passive speaker - but we could do it all with one output (and often do).